Sunday must be beaver day, because this morning we get beaver stories from two nations. The first is a little morbid, but the second will leave you smiling. Let’s start morbid and cheer ourselves with the thought thought of natives pulling a missionary’s leg.
How the beaver made Canada
Can there be a more obvious symbol of Canada than the beaver? No other animal, except for humans, is credited with the creation of the country. (Historically, the cod fish might have had something to say, but no one is listening to it.) “The beaver makes everything,” said an Innu hunter to Jesuit missionary Paul Le Jeune in the seventeenth century: Its valuable pelt could be traded for whatever people desired. Maybe the beaver could even make Canada.
If you think, like HBC and so many trappers did, that he was talking about the beaver pelt having many uses. you’d be wrong. You and I know very well that what he meant was literally “THE BEAVER MAKES EVERYTHING”. Because the beaver builds the dam and stores the water which grows the trees which feeds the wildlife which shapes the soil which grows the crops which brings the settlers which make the country.
“The beaver makes everything.”
Of course the missionary took it like Johnny in the movie Airplane and thought “I can make a hat, a coat, a vest, a blanket…”
I’m sure he knew the priest would take it that way, but we know that’s not what he meant. Heck, maybe he even knew destroying the beaver would destroy the land and thought, if you’re going to steal my home then hey, I’m at least going to ruin it.
But Cree artist Kent Monkman captured the essence of the ambiguity of the beaver as a national symbol. In a parody of, and ironic commentary on, different genres of art, Monkman’s 2016 painting Les Castors du Roi riffs off relevant images, including fanciful historical depictions, of the beaver. French and Indigenous hunters savagely murder the beaver with spears, daggers, leg-hold traps and guns, while church representatives stand idly by. On the right of the canvas, an anthropomorphized beaver prays to a Christian God, while beaver spirits ascend toward heaven.
Of course we know that beavers hold their hands together like they are praying or saying grace when they eat, but other than that I appreciate the art analysis. This is a complex painting, and I like it better when I realize it’s ironic. Do you think we could get Kent to do one of the beavers slaughtering the fur-traders? Because that would really interest me.
On to a story which knows full what what that native meant when he said “the beaver makes everything“.
Iroquois Confederacy Timeline
“The Savages say the beaver is the animal well-beloved by the Europeans. I heard my Native host say one day jokingly, ‘Missi picoutau amiscou. The Beaver does everything perfectly well: it makes kettles, hatchets, swords, knives, bread. In short it makes everything.’ He was making sport of us Europeans. The English have no sense; they give us twenty knives like this for one Beaver skin.”
– Father Paul Le Jeune, French Jesuit missionary in New France
Your Watershed column: A story of ecological restoration
Butler Creek is located in the White River National Forest at the headwaters of Rifle Creek. It is directly north of Rifle by about 16 miles, and “if you look at pictures from decades ago, Butler Creek was a mess,” said Clay Ramey of the U.S. Forest Service.
“The management practice back then was to actually spray herbicide down onto the willows along the stream so that there would be more water for grazing,” he recalled.
The Butler Creek grazing pasture, one of many pastures in a massive allotment, was modified to allow grazing only in the early summer when the willows don’t taste as sweet to the cattle as they do in the fall. Colorado Parks & Wildlife made a donation as well: the East Branch of Parachute Creek had plenty of beavers, and they figured they could gift some to the cause.
When the cows away, the beavers will – well think of something that rhymes with away but means build dams and store water and save fish.
“It’s really all about the beavers,” said Ramey. The entirety of Butler Creek used to be a series of beaver dams, and when they were chased away and died off, the dams broke, and the gradient of the creek changed to increase erosion.
“The dams of the beavers also keep water around for longer and raise the water table,” he said. The beaver dams will catch the sediment that suffocates downstream native fish populations.
“We plant the willows to give the beavers something to feed on and to build their dams out of. The willows are great anyways for their purpose of stabilizing the streambanks, but we’re hoping it’s the beavers that truly fix up the mess and bring ecological health back to Butler Creek.”
Yes it is. Because beavers make everything. An Innu hunter knew that 300 years ago, but it’s nice to see one branch of the federal government finally getting the message.
Recovery takes time, but within a year, positive changes are already happening.
“The beaver population is thriving, and the willows we transplanted have had a great survival rate, despite the dry summer,” said Nate Higginson, watershed specialist for the Middle Colorado Watershed Council. “We’ve seen Colorado River cutthroat trout spawning in the creek. Time will tell if they flourish, but at least they’re still there, and the entire ecology, from the grazing cattle to wildlife, benefit from this return to balance along Butler Creek.”
Move over and let the beaver do the work. Seems right to me.
